Focusing on numismatics, and commenting upon current legal and world events, not to mention asides into the world of scuba diving, flying, and fine firearms.
Devil's Den is a spring about 40 minutes from Gainesville that offers some fun diving practice in fresh water.
The UF Scuba Club had booked some of the gear setup areas with tables and it was very nicely organized. We arrived and the group all geared up and headed into the spring after checking in, doing waivers, paying the entrance fee and rental needed equipment.
Entry is through a tunnel heading downward and you need to mind your head as its rather tight.
Even though you enter through a cave entrance, there is direct sunlight through the ceiling of the collapsed cave.
That hole is rather pretty when viewed form under the water:
There's a nice platform set up that you then enter into the water.
There's a mound of rocks and rubble piled in the middle of the spring with deeper areas to the sides.
There's a few fish wandering about the spring;
There are some swim-throughs, meaning an overhead environment, but it was always a pretty quick transition through them,. and you can still see daylight, and some swim-throughs turned out to end in blockages that require you to turn around which got a little tight but was fine.
There is a cave entrance, but entry into the cave is strictly prohibited.
Most springs with caves have the standard Grim Reaper with the "No Non-Cave Trained Divers Should Enter" sign. This one is an outright prohibition.
Lights were needed as it was dark in the spring, and a lot of particulate in the water made for some difficult photos.
Leah loved her first certified dive experience, and she did great for a first dive as a certified diver without an instructor present, and did a very good job as a dive buddy.
We had a nice 54 minute run time with a max depth of 52 feet. The
temperature ranged from 72-75 degrees depending on where you were in the
water which made for a comfy dive.
The Sea Explorer joined us at the dive site, and yes there is a rivalry between the boats. We were informed that if you ended your dive by getting back on the wrong boat after the dive, you owed a case of beer to that boat. I'm not saying there was an effort to convince Sea Explorer divers that they needed to ascend on our upline rather than theirs . . .
Jay, Gino and I decided to enjoy a nice deep dive for our final dive. This would work as we all had later flights out on Friday, allowing for a full 24 hour no-flying period.
So we did a solid descent and dropped down to 108 feet.
We also checked out the cave that's at around 70 feet as well.
There was a lot of particulate in the water that made photos less than awesome.
A nice little cave.
We then ascended and hung around the top of the blue hole to admire the sea life there.
A gorgeous Triggerfish:
The happiest blue parrotfish I've ever seen:
This fish had a great smile and waved his fins at the divers.
Some quick headshots under water, and then that was the dive.
The last dive with Blackbeard's was a great success. Our last dive together as a buddy team, at least for now.
We then got back on the Morningstar, hung up our gear, started packing things away, and began the voyage back to Nassau.
Average depth was 45 feet for a nice 42 minute dive and it was dive #300 for me, so a nice milestone to achieve on the last dive of the trip.
The last day of diving was both sad as it was the last day of diving, and amazing at the same time.
We got up to a fantastic breakfast as usual, and then headed to the Lobster No Lobster dive site.
It's named Lobster No Lobster as it is the site where Jacques Cousteau learned that Lobsters migrate (without the help of either European or African Swallows).
They do go at times en masse from reef to reef, hence the first dive he did at this particular reef had a ton of lobster, and on a return dive a few days later he found it had none. He later saw a lobster migration as it happened, but he did not confirm or deny that the lobsters were banging coconuts together that they had gripped in their claws as they migrated.
On our dive we did indeed find lobster, and real big ones too:
This lobster actually turned and then used his antennae to smack Gio on his head as he got close to it.
Quite a few reef fish around to enjoy looking at, but then the main even soon arrived.
As you can see in the video, I got some up close face-time with an inquisitive Caribbean Reef Shark. It also startled a few other divers as you can see in the video near the end.
He came close enough on multiple passes that I could've Booped the Snoot, but happily, no snoots were booped in the making of this video.
The shark was rather chill and was content to make quite a few passes checking things out. Two other sharks were also frolicking about the area as well. The idea when a shark comes to check you out is to keep your cool, maintain eye contact, don't try and swim rapidly away from an approaching shark or make any panicked movements. You should be ready to put something like your fins or camera between you and the shark should that be necessary, in this case it was not.
This extended shark encounter made for a fantastic first dive of the last day, and a highlight of the entire trip.
The first dive we did was Morgan's Peak and it got a bit sporty.
It has a shallow area and a wall dive, and of course our dive team went for the wall dive.
We dropped on down the wall and started exploring.
We found a very large crab on the way down to 94 feet.
Some fish and interesting coral down there.
We then started getting close to our No-Deco-Limit and I signaled for us to ascend somewhat to keep within the proper NDL range and let everyone know the air situation. I signaled that we should turn the dive and head back to the upline then, but Jay kept us moving along the wall instead of cutting back immediately, planning to do a rectangular path. That didn't quite work out as he intended.
Unfortunately he made the wrong turn at Albuquerque and we were starting to get low on air and ended up ascending and doing our safety stop kinda far from the boat as he didn't quite close the rectangle he was trying to make.
So we surfaced a pretty darn good distance from the boat, which was still in sight, and signaled we were ok, and we inflated a marker buoy so they would be able to see us.
We then tried swimming to the boat. No dice. The current was against us and the surface was pretty choppy and all we were getting was tired for our efforts. We were also down to around 500 psi each so descending and trying to swim to the boat against the current was also not a great option.
So we signaled we needed a pickup, and the dingy came to get us and we got to ride back to the boat in style. Not a preferred technique, but it gave the deckhand something to do, and was a safe means of getting back. After that dive, the three of us did a debrief and affirmed some better safety procedures to adopt for all future dives.
Unfortunately, at some point after we doffed our gear in the water and got it in the dingy, something had to have hit my primary second stage of my regulator. This apparently hit it just right to mess it up and cause it to do a slow almost silent leak. This would bite me later.
So safely aboard, we headed to the Island of the Iguanas to enjoy a surface interval.
These iguanas are cute and will eat right out of your hand, if you don't mind them biting your hand, as such stick feeding is the way to go:
Lots of fun, and they move real fast when they want to.
Then we got set to dive the Washing Machine, which I had been very much looking forward to doing.
I then discovered the issue with my regulator and we could not get it fixed in time for me to make the Washing Machine dive. This dive is a cool drift dive where the current tumbles you about. We ended up swapping out the entire hose so I was good for subsequent dives but I missed that one.
On the upside, it turned out the Washing Machine had been set to the gentle cycle so I didn't miss much at all. Next time.
We headed back to the Exumas and soon arrived at the Pablo Escobar Plane site - the place I did my first dive with Blackbeard's. Our dive master euphemistically noted the plane had been carrying a cargo of "soccer balls" , and while most had been recovered by the authorities, if we happened to find a "soccer ball" during the dive it needed to be turned over ASAP.
It was a great relaxing dive, at 22 feet for an hour.
Some nice big fish were hanging around the plane wreck.
No sharks were seen, so we likely won't see a Cocaine Shark movie anytime soon. This is good as a shark hyped up on cocaine is a rather scary thought.
It's a fun wreck to dive.
Then for the night dive, my buddies declared themselves too cold to dive, so I went out with Megan. Megan is a newer diver who was getting her Advanced Open Water certification done on the boat.
She was a good dive buddy, needs to work on her trim a bit.
The wreck at night was pretty cool to see, with a big fish hiding underneath it.
Megan was getting cold, so we turned the dive and ended it after 31 minutes. Still, a nice fun dive and neat to see the plane wreck at night.
We got out, hung up our gear, and warmed up with some adult beverages.
Day 5 had some challenges, but it was still a darn good day.
Monolith is a great wall dive that looks like it can go down forever.
There were lionfish at 100 feet.
A nice dive to a max of 101 feet with an average of 57 feet.
After the Monolith, we motored to our next dive site, Split Coralhead.
The crew put the shark feeding hats went on, signaling the fun was about to begin.
It was Shark Feeding Dive time!
It would be a group entry, with everyone prepped in their gear lined up and ready to go at both exit points from the boat, and dropping into the water via negative entries in the shortest time possible.
At 50 feet we would be kneeling on the bottom watching the sharks get fed.
The sharks knew we were coming and were already circling to meet us for a meal.
We all got into position, then the chiumsicle was brought in and the fun began.
Much Shark feeding then took place, along with swarms of hungry jacks.
After the feed, we got to swim around the reef and see some of the sharks up close.
It was a great 47-minute Shark dive with the feeding frenzy itself lasting around 14 minutes. Getting back on the boat with the sharks circling around below was a rather fun feeling, but they were content after the feeding and didn't bother any of us lined up waiting on the tagline to get back on the boat.
We then dove the Cannonball reef.
This was a nice shallow dive with a max depth of 25 feet and average of 20 feet and we got a solid hour bottom time.
Not too much to see except for typical reef fish after the action of the shark dive, but it was a nice relaxing dive indeed.
There were a couple highlights, including a good looking triggerfish there.
It wasn't triggered, which is good as there have been more divers bit by triggerfish than by sharks and triggerfish bites can hurt.
We also found out that fish do grow on trees!
On top of that, there was a cool puffer-fish in the area
After an hour dive, everyone was quite chilled at that point and then getting out of the water with a very cold wind and air temps in the low 60s it felt even worse. As a result, all but 4 divers who were doing their advanced certification on the boat skipped the night dive.
I almost went but both my buddies bailed and convinced me that there wasn't anything too special about the dive site worth getting even more chilled for. Then they plied me with beer, and then the rum punch called, and all the divers not diving had one heckuva fun party on deck.
The next day we dove Cut 'N' Run, Cobia Cage, and Kraken's Lair both during the day and at night.
The Cut N Run site was an anchorage by the where ships would cut their anchor lines and run when they spotted a pirate ship approaching.
So there's a large old anchor chain encrusted in coral that goes for a long way at the site.
There's also a neat plane wreck there as well.
While that plane will never fly again, there was a cool turtle flying through the water:
A fun dive to a max depth 72 feet for 38 minutes.
Cobia Cage is a very cool site, with a huge cage designed to farm cobia. It didn't work as sharks, that love to eat cobia figured out how to get in the cage and its now an encrusted spherical empty cage that is just cool to see. And yes there was a shark circling around that was pretty neat.
And, sadly you can't see it the cage or that shark, as I had a camera housing malfunction. I then had it fixed for the next dive and all was well, but no images from this dive to a max depth of 102 feet (average of 56 feet) for 36 minutes.
Kraken's Lair didn't have any krakens.
It did have some cool tight coral swim-throughs:
And some large barracuda
At night some other creatures would come out.
That lobster was huge. But, not lobster season, you can't take lobster on scuba in the Bahamas anyways, and lobster that large are apparently not very tasty. So, he got to continue going about his underwater nighttime business unhampered.
It was a cool dive. Indeed, the night-time dive was rather chilly getting out in a cold wind.
Day 2 started off with some strong coffee and breakfast and then we hit the water of the Eleuthras.
We dove Closemon Reef, Dog Rocks, and Tunnel Rocks.
We had Gio join our dive buddy group to form a three-man team.
Gio is a very fun, extroverted, guy from California with a ton of energy.
He became a good dive buddy and we stayed a three-man team for pretty much all the dives on the trip from then on out.
Closemon reef dive had a max depth of 19 feet and lasted an hour and three minutes. It's right off of Pimlico Cay, hence the reef is Close, Mon.
The highlight was a stingray flying through the water which was cool to see.
Other than that there were typical reef fish and coral.
Dog Rocks was 78.2 feet and 43 minutes.
We dove down to the church site with the coral swim through that makes it look like a cathedral. A very pretty dive site.
The church had some pretty cool looking fish nearby:
and there were lots of Barracuda swimming around as well:
Tunnel Rocks we dove both during the day and nighttime.
39.7 feet for 51 minutes during the day, and 45 feet for 54 minutes that night.
It has some interesting coral growing trees that have been placed there to help increase the coral.
Quite a few lionfish were seen on every dive.
It's a pervasive invasive species, with some nasty venomous spines on it. It apparently is a rather tasty fish once caught and filleted, but the Bahamas has yet to declare open season on it, unlike other Caribbean locations, so no fishing for it for us.
A jack joined our dive team for awhile likley looking for prey we might make appear:
On the night dive, those same jacks were out and about looking for food:
If you had a smaller fish in your light beam, a jack would likely swoop in out of the darkness and appreciate you finding its meal.
We also saw a turtle resting during the night dive:
